Robert Pore's Ag Blog

LINCOLN — Nebraska Cattlemen is opposed to The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503), a bill which would eliminate a humane animal management option by banning the processing of horses.

NC sent a letter July 24 to Representative Bob Goodlatte, House Agriculture Committee chairman, asking him to help defeat the bill. NC has also contacted Nebraska’s delegates Fortenberry, Osborne and Terry and they are opposed to the proposal.

NC President Pete McClymont said the legislation was introduced under the guise of protecting horse welfare, but the provisions of this bill will do more to harm horses than it will to protect them.

Each year, approximately 80,000 horses are harvested in the United States. The majority of these horses are no longer viable for their intended use, are old or infirm, unmanageable, or simply unwanted by their owners. The plants provide humane euthanasia as dictated by the Humane Slaughter Act, and their processing is regulated by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to ensure that the meat is safe and properly labeled. In addition, the transport of animals to processing facilities is regulated by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, as mandated by the Commercial Transportation of Equine for Slaughter provision in the 1996 Farm Bill, McClymont said.

“The elimination of this management option actually poses a risk to horse welfare,” McClymont said. “Without the ability to recapture value out of a horse at auction, it is expected that some owners will neglect their animals and allow them to continue a life of discomfort or pain, inadequate care, and/or abandonment. Allowing a horse to live in pain or starve to death is a much worse fate than humane euthanasia and processing.”

Many proponents of the legislation argue that horse adoption and rescue facilities would be able to handle the unwanted horses, but these facilities are already inundated with horses confiscated by the government or given up voluntarily. Additional horses given up due to this legislation will make it even harder for them to adequately care for the extra horses, possibly resulting in inadvertent negative affects on the horses’ welfare, McClymont said.

“There are many problems with the proposed ban. We want to protect the rights of horse owners to manage their animals and other livestock in a responsible and respectful way. Regardless of whether some people feel that the processing of horses is unacceptable, the decisions about equine welfare and this issue must be based on solid animal husbandry. Legislation based solely on emotion is a slippery slope not only for animal agriculture, but for all issues that Congress addresses,” McClymont added.

(Billings, Mont.) – R-CALF USA is pleased to learn the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) withdrew from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) its proposed rule to allow cattle and beef from cattle over 30 months (OTM) of age from Canada – the last stage of the government’s rule-making process before actual publication in the Federal Register.

“This means that APHIS has brought this proposed rule back within the agency,” said R-CALF USA President and Region V Director Chuck Kiker. “The assumptions regarding the scope of the disease problem in Canada, along with the ineffectiveness of the Canadian feed ban, must now be changed following Canada’s discovery of a BSE-infected cow that was only 4 years and 2 months old.”

R-CALF USA continues to urge APHIS to publicly announce it is postponing indefinitely plans to allow into the U.S. cattle over 30 months of age from Canada, and beef from those OTM cattle, until the full scope of Canada’s BSE problem is scientifically known and a new risk assessment is completed that incorporates the four separate BSE-infected cows born after Canada’s feed ban was implemented in 1997.

R-CALF USA also urges APHIS to take additional steps to ensure the BSE problem in Canada does not adversely affect exports of U.S. beef.

R-CALF USA has requested the Secretary of Agriculture to:

Rescind its Minimal Risk Region Rule that presently allows the importation of cattle and beef from cattle under 30 months of age from Canada until a comprehensive analysis is completed on Canada’s latest detection of a 4 year, 2 month old cow with BSE;
End its practice of granting access to the U.S. market before the United States fully regains all of its lost export markets; and,
Ensure that beef produced exclusively from U.S. cattle be clearly labeled with a Country-of-Origin Label (COOL) for consumers, both domestic and abroad.
“Without differentiating U.S. beef from foreign beef, the U.S. cattle industry cannot benefit from the successful measures our country has implemented to reduce the likelihood of cattle disease problems,” Kiker said. “The steps R-CALF USA suggests are needed for the U.S. cattle industry to maintain its separate identity and to preserve U.S. cattle producers’ reputation of producing the safest, most wholesome beef in the world, under the very best of conditions.”

To view the withdrawal, visit: http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eoDetails?rrid=113401